New Sorc Prestige slated for U21 - Make it Dragon Disciple please

**Memnir** · 09-09-2013, 05:48 PM

Isn't this pretty much already in DDO in the form of the Draconic Incarnation ED?

I'm betting on Acolyte of the Skin, since they've had that in their sights for a while now.

**Failedlegend** · 09-09-2013, 10:28 PM

Originally Posted by Memnir

I'm betting on Acolyte of the Skin, since they've had that in their sights for a while now.

Well considering every race was supposed to get their own unique PRE and a bunch of other prestiges were cancelled and replaced with different ones (ie. no virtuoso) their obviously fine with changing their plans...also Kotc+HOTD and Tempeset+Dervish shows they have no issue sprikling in abilitites from multiple prestiges into oen (ie/ DD+Swift Blade)

Originally Posted by Memnir

Isn't this pretty much already in DDO in the form of the Draconic Incarnation ED?

If thats supposed to be Dragon Disiple I've very disappointed while all the abilities were likely inspired by DD its missing ALOT of the key abilities...also its an Epic Destiny which means you cant use it until Lvl 20 and must be paid for. (Note: I own EDs so this wont affect me)

**Uska** · 09-10-2013, 12:44 AM

Originally Posted by Failedlegend

So your already incredibly biased and apparently a really annoying/controlling DM as well

It would be like every other "transformation" in DDO it wouldn't need to be a new model it would just be an aura/minor visual effect/overlay of some sort similar to Savants or Palemasters so I disagree it would be "too much work" as otherwise it would have been too much work for those prestige classes.

As for it being OP...some actual input/reasoning would be nice.

By banning splat books I saved myself money and made my game easier to run and balance I had so many people wanting to play I had to turn many away.

As to your idea being OP its blantly so so needs no elaboration. and as has been pointed out technically we already have them even though they arent to your liking.

**psykopeta** · 09-10-2013, 02:31 AM

My thoughts:

- Name it <Color> Dragon Disciple and have it like Savants where there's different versions for each element with slight differences.

Ok

- Natural Armor and PRR Increases to reflect your skin becoming dragon scale hard (probably have it increase for every core ability purchased)

Do it as defender's trees (pally and fighter), u get 5 AC + 5 prr for each core u take (even could give something for each point spent on tree, note that 5 is only an option)

- Bonuses to Str, Con OR Charisma.

Like kensai, can choose between 3

- Breath Weapon (Element based on color choice)

No ty, it's not draconic ED.

- Elemental Resistance (eventual immunity) based on color chosen

No ty, it's not draconic ED

- Some immunities based on chosen color (similar to how palemaster gets undead-like immunities)

Ok, like tier 4(or was 5?) from savants, oh wait, u already have em in the same class but different pre, guess that no ty

- Some sort of "Dragon Form" like the Palemasters forms...probably is where some of the abilities suggested here are accessed/gained. No need to change healing type since most Dragons are healed by positive energy...although it would be a thematic capstone to be healed by your chosen color/element

Something like 5 times/rest 1 min duration, and having 50 resist is more than you can expect from a pre.

- Sorc Level counts as 1/3, 1/2, a full fighter (tier allotment up to devs) for purpose of feat pre-reqs.

Ok with bab, not with feat prereqs, so it would be like a partial tenser permanent, ofc this would be placed in core abilities.

- Grant extended duration to Haste, rage and tenser's tranformation eventually culimntaing in a tier 5 ability that makes them last until rest and be undispelable (even immune to beholder antimagic cone)

I don't see a real reason/relation to do so, permahaste is a lvl 27 feat, so that suggestion can be forgotten in the oblivion.

- Spell Resistance

Ok, not stackable with drow, obvious reasons

- Ways to reduce or eliminate ASF either by ASF value or just by armor type (and grant proficiency)...like Tier 1 could nullify ASF for Light Armor/Light Shields, Tier 3 Medium Armor and Large Shields, Tier 5 Heavy Armor and Tower Shield (along with the relevant proficiencies)

! thing is reducing ASF, another is nullifying, especially heavy armor and tower shield, when you're a DD can't see why should u use em, In fact i would restrict the benefits of the trees to light armors or less.

- Some sort of Dragon roar ability that triggers an intimidate (does trigger intim cooldown) and cause cause fear (shaken on save)

Y, also this skill could be counted as fear effect for the draconic incarnation tier 1 skilll.

- Damage Reduction/ X, where X is based on color (ie. Black = Adamantine, White = Crystal)

If u're using chromatic dragons, their benefits are elemental, if u use metallic dragons, their benefits are physical, so no ty, u already have ac and prr.

- Toggle abilty that allows you to expend Mana per strike to deal extra damage of your colors element (or maybe just a Single Element buff similar to Artificer "Elemental Weapon" except it stacks with any spells of that nature...probably part of the "Dragon Form")

Can't see a relation with sp/spells per day and melee, really, guess that's a bad idea too.

- Spellpower bonus based on color choice (probably per point spent in tree kind of thing)

Ofc, like savants but w/o reduction in the opposite element.

- Unarmed gains x[W] and piercing to reflect growing claws. (amount of increase up to devs...make it nice enough to matter though)

Could simply modify unarmed damage to piercing instead of being bludgeoning (oh wait, just recalled we are using bludgeoning in a wrong way in ddo XD), wouldn't increase unarmed dice because u're a disciple, not a dragon, could include an increase of unarmed damage when using dragon form (and after spending some ap to get that benefit)

This way we would have a close-to-balanced tree for enhancements.

**Failedlegend** · 09-10-2013, 03:57 AM

Originally Posted by psykopeta

My thoughts:

- Natural Armor and PRR Increases to reflect your skin becoming dragon scale hard (probably have it increase for every core ability purchased)

Do it as defender's trees (pally and fighter), u get 5 AC + 5 prr for each core u take (even could give something for each point spent on tree, note that 5 is only an option)

Makes sense

Originally Posted by psykopeta

- Bonuses to Str, Con OR Charisma.

Like kensai, can choose between 3

Yes inside the tree it makes sense like the other classes but the bonuses I was refering to is ones it would gain from his/her growing draconic capabilities similar to the PM forms except can't be turned off.

If you think so minor sta boosts are OP you should go complain about fatesinger it gets a bunch of boosts, void dragon for monk as well.

Originally Posted by psykopeta

- Sorc Level counts as 1/3, 1/2, a full fighter (tier allotment up to devs) for purpose of feat pre-reqs.

Ok with bab, not with feat prereqs, so it would be like a partial tenser permanent, ofc this would be placed in core abilities.

Why not, it wouldn't be OP just open up a few decent feats.

Originally Posted by psykopeta

- Grant extended duration to Haste, rage and tenser's tranformation eventually culimntaing in a tier 5 ability that makes them last until rest and be undispelable (even immune to beholder antimagic cone)

I don't see a real reason/relation to do so, permahaste is a lvl 27 feat, so that suggestion can be forgotten in the oblivion.

This is actually pulled from swiftblade (the devs have shown sprinkling abilities from other prestiges is something their open too) as for your "Permahaste" being a lvl 27 feat...thats true but only non-arcane melees would take this because arcane melees already have the spell...increasing the duration to permanent and making in undispellable is only a convenience for someone who can already cast these spells

Originally Posted by psykopeta

- Spell Resistance

Ok, not stackable with drow, obvious reasons

Drows Spell resistance has been nerfed for reasons like this...note that occult slayer barbs have spell resistance equal to their con mod and that stacks with drow sr. As for the ability I'd be fine if it was an SLA

Originally Posted by psykopeta

- Some sort of Dragon roar ability that triggers an intimidate (does trigger intim cooldown) and cause cause fear (shaken on save)

Y, also this skill could be counted as fear effect for the draconic incarnation tier 1 skilll.

because half-dragons roaring is thematic and part of the PnP prestige class and so what if it has synergy with a ED alot of PrEs do

Originally Posted by psykopeta

- Damage Reduction/ X, where X is based on color (ie. Black = Adamantine, White = Crystal)

If u're using chromatic dragons, their benefits are elemental, if u use metallic dragons, their benefits are physical, so no ty, u already have ac and prr.

Again this is based off of the PnP prestige class so this is just pulled from there...personally I think DR is kinda useless so i could care less if its not added

Originally Posted by psykopeta

- Toggle abilty that allows you to expend Mana per strike to deal extra damage of your colors element (or maybe just a Single Element buff similar to Artificer "Elemental Weapon" except it stacks with any spells of that nature...probably part of the "Dragon Form")

Can't see a relation with sp/spells per day and melee, really, guess that's a bad idea too.

I was thinking that dragons attacks are part magical part physical so using your MP made sense but I'd be ok if they gained a stance to apply their relevant element to their attack (no extra damage just the element) twas just thematic my friend but I wouldn't be bothered if it was omitted

Originally Posted by psykopeta

- Spellpower bonus based on color choice (probably per point spent in tree kind of thing)

Ofc, like savants but w/o reduction in the opposite element.

I'd be fine with the opposite element being reduced

A few other notes

- I fail to see how DD having abilities similar to savant or DI makes it an automatic dismissal...Archmage and Magister have similar abilities so does FvS and Exalted Angel and there's nothing wrong with that...actually having interesting synergies is a good thing...my hope is for a Kobold -> DD -> DI

- Saying "your a disciple not a dragon" makes me think your not familiar with the source material...the whole goal of a DD is to eventually become at least dragon-like if not a full fledged Dragon

- Limiting dragon form to x/day for a minute makes no sense its not a spell its a permanent change...it should scale with each core ability taken like how the savant visual effect does. So anything related to the draconic abilities is related to that dragon breath, wings (ff+jump+balance bonus & Monk-like Jump clickie), piercing unarmed & +[w] as well as elemental weakness/immunity based on color

- I agree with heavy armor/shield bit i personally don't think it fits but its a popular request so i added it. I'd rather see it as part of Eldritch Knight if its ever added (prob as a wiz pre)

Now all that said I'm entirely open to discussion as long as it keeps within the theme of the original prestige class and its strong enough that it wont be ignored.

**dlsidhe** · 09-10-2013, 08:40 AM

Dragon Disciple...I like it. Actually more than AotS.

So, to take a swing at the thing, inspired by http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeCl...onDisciple.htm -

Core (normal progression rules, blah blah blah):

1: Initiate - For every core ability, you gain +1 natural armor and +3PRR. For every point spent in the tree, you earn .75USP. Novitiate - Your unarmed attacks now do 1d6 slashing/piercing damage. When unarmed, you gain a BAB equivalent to 3/4 of your sorcerer levels and monk attack animations

2: Elevation I: You choose a draconic heritage and gain +10 spell power in the associated spells. Your unarmed attacks are now considered magical for DR purposes.

3: Novitiate: Your unarmed attacks now deal 1.5W damage, and deal an additional 2-8 damage based on your choice of heritage. This additional damage cannot process more than once per second.

4: Elevation II: You gain an additional +10 spell power based on your selection of heritage. You may fly short distances, similar to a monk's abundant step (cost: 10sp, 5 times, recharges, blah blah blah).

5: Aspirant: Your unarmed attacks now deal 2W damage, and deal an additional 3-24 slashing damage on critical strikes.

6: Draconic Disciple: You gain +2 charisma. You gain an additional +10 spell power based on your selection of heritage. Your unarmed attacks now deal 2.5W damage, and deal an additional 3-24 elemental damage on critical. You may assume a draconic shroud. Draconic Shroud: +2 strength, +4 constitution, +2 charisma, +5 bonus to armor, +25 bonus to PRR, and 100% fortification. Nearby enemies must make a DC22 will save or subject to a fear affect in your presence. Enemies who make the save are considered shaken unless immune to all fear affects.

Tier 1:

Walking Weapon [2AP/tier]: You gain 2.5/5/7.5% melee attack speed, and 3/6/10% base movement speed.

Impressive Visage: You gain +2/4/6 diplomacy/haggle/bluff.

Terrifying Visage: You gain +2/4/6 intimidate. Tier 3: You gain an additional +1DC to all fear-based effects.

Spell Criticals [2AP]: You gain a +1% critical chance for all spells.

Tier 2:

Talking Weapon [2AP, requires Walking Weapon of equal tier]: You roar, and all nearby enemies must make a DC 18/22/24 will save or be under a fear effect. Tier 2: enemies who make the save are still shaken. Tier 3: Enemies must make an additional save or be paralyzed with fear.

Spell Criticals [2AP]: +1% critical blah...

Scaly: You gain an additional +1/2/3 natural armor. Tier 5: You gain DR 4/Slashing

Tier 3:

Draconic Immunities: You gain +2/4/6 saves against poison and disease. Tier 2: You gain blindness immunity. Tier 3: You no longer fail poison/disease saves on a roll of 1.

Shiny [requires Scaly, 2AP]: You gain SR equivalent to your charisma modifier plus 2/3/4. Tier 3: You gain +1DC to all enchantment spells.

Walking Wall (requires Talking Weapon, 2AP): You gain +5/10/15PRR

Spell Criticals [2AP]: I'm not writing it again.

Stat Raise: Str/Con/Cha

Tier 4:

Draconic Fortitude (2AP): You gain 2/4/6 to all fortitude saves. Tier 3: You do not automatically fail fort saves on a 1.

Motivational Speaker (requires Walking Wall, 2AP): Your roar grants companions and hirelings a fear bonus (new type!) of +2 strength, +2 con and +2 to fortitude saves for 1 minute.

Spell Criticals: ...

Stat Raise: Str/Con/Cha

Tier 5:

Draconic Fighting (2AP): You gain 2% doublestrike when unarmed. On vorpal, you perform an AoE breath attack dealing 6d8 elemental damage to enemies in a large cone in front of you. DC 10+Half Character Level+Charisma modifier, considered to be an evocation spell.

Hardened Scales (requires Shiny, 2AP): You gain 6 natural armor, and 10 PRR.

Hard To Resist (requires Hardened Scales, Spell Critical tier 4, 2AP): You gain +1 to evocation or conjuration DCs.

Hard To Handle (Requires Hardened Scales, 2AP): You gain +1 to saves against enchantments, and are immune to web, earthgrab, trip, and any other physical crowd control effects.

**Failedlegend** · 09-10-2013, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by dlsidhe

Snipped due to length...awesome stuff though

Couple notes:

- Adding the unarmed animation is a nice touch, so is the piercing/slash damage addition similar to druid wolf/bear forms

- Slight adjustment to the damage increase have it say do +0.5[W] damage as opposed to 1.5 times damage just to keep in line with everything else

- I love your ability names

- I'd like to see either Elevation II (Core 4) or the "Draconic Shroud" add a Feather Fall Toggle.

- I don't really like the name "Draconic Shroud" the thing about DD is you actually become part dragon as opposed to "taking on dragon-like aspects" not sure what I'd call it though to be honest (Dragon Blooded??). I definitely agree with having it as a capstone though instead of say a tier 5 ability.

- The "Scaly" abilities DR bypass pre-req should be based on color choice as opposed to just slashing (ie. White = Crystal, Blue = Mithral, Green = Adamantine)

- I don't know if it would be OP but maybe add +1 HP per point spent to the Core 1 (as well as the .75 USP)

- I'd love the way you have breath weapons proc on vorpals and the extra damage based on your heritage (Novitiate)...I would like to see these be toggles though because otherwise certain color DDs will be a liability in some content (ie. A Red DD in Chains of Flames)

Other than that It's definitely pretty solid imo...I mean it doesn't have element resist nor the extended buff durations but it has a whole lot of highly flavourful (and useful) stuff so I can ignore that quite easily especially since both of those abilities are merely convenience...good job

Sidenote: I'd also like to see this added as a Bard PrE as well since their short a prestige class now.

**dlsidhe** · 09-10-2013, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by Failedlegend

Couple notes:

- Adding the unarmed animation is a nice touch, so is the piercing/slash damage addition similar to druid wolf/bear forms

- Slight adjustment to the damage increase have it say do +0.5[W] damage as opposed to 1.5 times damage just to keep in line with everything else

- I love your ability names

- I'd like to see either Elevation II (Core 4) or the "Draconic Shroud" add a Feather Fall Toggle.

- I don't really like the name "Draconic Shroud" the thing about DD is you actually become part dragon as opposed to "taking on dragon-like aspects" not sure what I'd call it though to be honest (Dragon Blooded??). I definitely agree with having it as a capstone though instead of say a tier 5 ability.

- The "Scaly" abilities DR bypass pre-req should be based on color choice as opposed to just slashing (ie. White = Crystal, Blue = Mithral, Green = Adamantine)

- I don't know if it would be OP but maybe add +1 HP per point spent to the Core 1 (as well as the .75 USP)

- I'd love the way you have breath weapons proc on vorpals and the extra damage based on your heritage (Novitiate)...I would like to see these be toggles though because otherwise certain color DDs will be a liability in some content (ie. A Red DD in Chains of Flames)

Other than that It's definitely pretty solid imo...I mean it doesn't have element resist nor the extended buff durations but it has a whole lot of highly flavourful (and useful) stuff so I can ignore that quite easily especially since both of those abilities are merely convenience...good job

Sidenote: I'd also like to see this added as a Bard PrE as well since their short a prestige class now.

Geeeargh! I got so tied up with the melee bonuses I forgot about elemental resists.

Yeah, "Dragon Shroud" sucks, but it was early.

I'd go with "Draconic Form" or something - and add an inherent 20 (appropriate elemental resist) and featherfalling. That makes sense. I agree with add .5W damage per core ability. I'm more inclined to add 5hp per core ability than one per point spent.

And OF COURSE this has to be for bards too. The most fun I ever had in NWN was being a draconic disciple bard.

ETA: On toggling the dragon-breath vorpal, I agree that should be an option, but there's another side to it - the DD has more flexibility. To use the chains o' flame scenario, in that case you change strategies. A red DD could intimidate and tank, and then cast non-fire spells without the penalties of a fire savant. They wouldn't be as potent as a savant, but it's more spellcasting flexibility and greater survivability at the cost of power.

**Failedlegend** · 09-12-2013, 08:18 PM

Originally Posted by dlsidhe

Geeeargh! I got so tied up with the melee bonuses I forgot about elemental resists.

Heh no worries you got like 98% of it right

Originally Posted by dlsidhe

Yeah, "Dragon Shroud" sucks, but it was early.

I'd go with "Draconic Form" or something - and add an inherent 20 (appropriate elemental resist) and featherfalling. That makes sense. I agree with add .5W damage per core ability. I'm more inclined to add 5hp per core ability than one per point spent.

Maybe we should run a thread for a cool name

Originally Posted by dlsidhe

And OF COURSE this has to be for bards too. The most fun I ever had in NWN was being a draconic disciple bard.

Yeah their short a PrE anyways and I'm sure the devs wouldn't mind getting 2 PrEs done for the price of one

Originally Posted by dlsidhe

On toggling the dragon-breath vorpal, I agree that should be an option, but there's another side to it - the DD has more flexibility. To use the chains o' flame scenario, in that case you change strategies. A red DD could intimidate and tank, and then cast non-fire spells without the penalties of a fire savant. They wouldn't be as potent as a savant, but it's more spellcasting flexibility and greater survivability at the cost of power.

That's true but most people would find it to be a PITA which would make the prestige unpopular...unpopular trees don't get bugs fixed, etc. also a fair chunk of people who take DD would be primarily melee so switching to primarily offensive spellcasting is like a fighter with a past life wizard...it works but not really.

**Durten2** · 09-16-2013, 10:14 PM

Just my personal opinion and I realize what I like is not what everyone else wants...that being said...

Dragon Disciple sounds like Draconic Incarnation Lite. It's a boring ED that few people use and a prestige based on the same thing sounds boring.

Think about a few things:

Armor class in DDO is pointless unless you can get it super high, which you won't be able to do as a Sorc.

PRR could be interesting but it needs to be pretty massive because again a Sorc doesn't have many sources of it.

Any SLA or spell attack with a low DC (like most of these that currently exist) is pretty pointless. The DC on these things is usually so low no one uses them.

Any elemental bonuses are duplicative and I can already get in other trees.

Stat increases are ok - CON and CHA are always welcome but +2 Str is not going to matter.

Breath weapon - love the idea but have it DI already.

If the only way to make this Prestige useful is to multi lass than I don't like it. It sounds/feels like it will be a gimped Sorc and a gimped fighter.

Now, it probably sounds better than AotS though. That prestige sounds like it would be a useless amount of AC plus some minor resistances plus scorching ray out of your eyeballs and a wordlessly low DC fear effect.

Now what would be interesting to me is if they could dovetail. DD into DI so that the DD tree magnifies the DI and vice versa. For instance, if you the breath weapon in DD, the DI version is enhanced, double damage or something. If you could build DD to make DI viable, I would be for it.

However, what I think would be even more interesting would be if made the Prestige Blood Magus instead. It could create a different feel all together and bring something newish to the game. More elemental specialties are boring so a totally different take would be blood magus.

Just my thoughts. I see the interest in pulling in melee, but why not go SPellsword or something like that? It sounds more of a wizard thing though, but I don't care too mcu about the lore, etc.

**Failedlegend** · 09-17-2013, 10:58 AM